Believe it or not, the MLB regular season is already underway. That’s no joke.

If that’s news to you, however, don’t feel left out. It certainly is for most baseball fans, even the diehards, because MLB did little, if anything, to promote the opening series between Seattle & Oakland in Japan.

I bet most of you have no idea who won, who pitched, who homered…who was the home team? I know I didn’t, except for a small blurb I caught on Baseball Tonight. The rest of the story I found online. (Seattle won Game 1, Oakland won Game 2).

Funny enough, there’s such irony in the fact that while MLB tries to expand its horizons, they failed to reach the fans in its own country, and for the season’s lid-lifter no less!

Even those aware of the ‘official’ overseas opener couldn’t find it on television, including players and managers still wrapping up meaningless spring training games.

And there’s your big kick-off to the 2012 season. Hooray?

Granted baseball has made strong strides in the past decade to align itself with modern times, there’s still residue of the old business as usual approach–late to the party and lagging behind mainstream America.

For heaven’s sakes baseball, it’s the league opener! We’ve waited five long months for games that count. How about the courtesy of a heads-up.

That’s not to say opening the season in Japan is a bad idea. In fact, I believe the contrary.

The Asian market as become incredibly useful and important for MLB. The game itself is hugely popular in Japan, and more and more of Japan’s best players are achieving success in the major leagues.

Better still, much of the profit for the two-game series is being used for Tsunami relief, which perhaps, is the most important and gratifying benefit for the entire event.

Meanwhile, Ichiro’s return to Japan rivaled Elvis Presley’s fame at the height of his career. Yoenis Cespedes, the most talked about and analyzed free-agent this winter, made his major league debut–and homered.

Apparently baseball doesn’t feel the need to promote such events, although I couldn’t understand why not?

When the rest of baseball opens the season one week from today many more fans will see a discrepancy in the standings and wonder: Has Seattle and Oakland really played three games? Is that accurate?

Of course, it won’t take long for our fellow baseball brethren to catch up with the standings. Explaining why baseball left us all in the dark will be the hard part.